by Phil Foglio
“But... really? Agatha stepped up to the wagon and took a closer look. “I wouldn’t think it’s been played in years.”
André shrugged. “Ah, it just looks like that. We’ve discovered that if something appears too shiny and new, we run the risk of losing it to some damned princeling out for a new toy.”
Balthazar had said something similar. Agatha ran an eye over the circus wagons ranged before her. It explained a lot.
“But how can I fix this? That is, if I had the right tools, I think I could do it, but it’ll take more than basic cart repair tools for a job like this...”
Rivet grinned. “Ho! Tools I’ve got! Come on over here.”
Agatha turned to André. “I’m surprised you can’t fix it.”
He dismissed this with an elegant shrug. “Ah, while I know keyboards, I am, alas, no mechanic. Rivet here, while a fine mechanic, does not play. At the very least, I’m hoping you can get the basics sorted out before you leave us at Mechanicsburg.”
Agatha grimaced. “Well, I’ll try, but without a shop, without proper tools—”
They stopped beside Rivet’s wagon. It was covered in elaborate panels, which upon closer examination, Agatha noticed were actually cabinet doors. Rivet pulled out a ring of keys and began unlocking them and throwing them open one after the other, giving a proud little “Ta-dah!” with each reveal. Agatha watched this performance with growing astonishment. Within the cunningly-wrought cabinets were rack upon rack of gleaming tools, lovingly placed. Once all the doors were open, Rivet began fiddling with additional latches, unfolding and extending displays to reveal new wonders.
And wonders they were. Even some of the obscure tools she had only seen used in the most specialized labs at Transylvania Polygnostic were represented—often with a left-handed variant, and in a variety of sizes.
Delicate watch-making tools crafted from gold wire and ivory were a single rack away from a collection of monkey-wrenches that could have been used to uncouple the main fuel lines aboard Castle Wulfenbach. Tools constructed of everything from wood to what appeared to be tempered glass were artfully laid out around objects that even Agatha, with all her University experience, was having trouble identifying. Below the tools were what must have been hundreds of built-in drawers that contained nails, screws, bolts, and fasteners in a bewildering variety of shapes and sizes, with each compartment neatly labeled.
Agatha stood back and took in this immense collection of ironmongery. She now understood why Rivet’s wagon had to be pulled by a team of six draft horses.
“Sweet lightning,” she whispered. “This is an amazing collection. I don’t think the University has some of these!” She reverently picked up a locking wrench. “They’re beautifully made.” Craftsmen often constructed their own tools as an important part of their apprenticeship, but this collection ran across dozens of different trades.
Rivet nodded. “I find them out here in the Wastelands. Abandoned towns, crashed airships—you can find all kinds of stuff if you know where to look. I keep the best, rebuild and refurbish the rest. They’re good sale and trade items no matter where we go.”
Agatha picked up a curious piece that looked vaguely like a screwdriver. She depressed a small switch and the device began to vibrate in her hand with a high-pitched ululation. Nearby, a brass padlock sparked and fell open.
Rivet looked surprised. “Is that what that does? I’d wondered.”
Agatha carefully put the device back. “You’ll let me use these? With tools like these, I should be able to fix anything—anything at all.” Her voice was thick with admiration.
André grinned. “Wonderful! I will get you some paper, I’m sure you’ll want to draw up plans. Oh, and you’ll want to talk to Otto. He can configure his wagon engine so that it can run a lathe, mill or saw, anything you need.”
Agatha nodded, but she was only half listening. Her mind was already tackling the problem. Deep in thought, she wandered back to the old calliope.
Rivet watched her go, sighed, and began shutting up her wagon. It was a rather time-consuming operation. When she spoke, it was in a low whisper. “André, I just don’t understand what Master Payne is thinking. There’re plenty of real repair jobs I could use her on.” She glared at the music master. “Finest music machine east of my ass. That stupid old thing is just a wreck that Lars found. I was planning on stripping it for scrap.”
André sniffed. “Don’t be crude, it suits you all too well. You want her to help with repairs? Then by all means ask her. Master Payne said to keep her so busy she doesn’t have time to think.” He waved a hand to indicate Agatha, who was now atop the calliope wagon, resolutely tugging at a twisted pipe, “Voilà! It is done!”
Rivet hesitated, than sulked a bit. “But she’s going to mess with my tools.”
“Better to share your tools, than lose your neck.”
All Rivet had to say to that was a resigned “Harumph” and the conversation was over. Krosp, lurking behind a wheel, found this extremely frustrating.
At lunchtime, Agatha asked Zeetha: “How will Abner find us again? Haven’t we traveled an awfully long way since he’s been gone?”
Zeetha reassured her. “We’re in the same river valley, and we’re keeping to the old road. The caravan always moves pretty slow, and Abner’s a good woodsman when he has to be. I won’t start to worry about him for another week, at least.”
Even so, it wasn’t long after lunch that Agatha saw Zeetha walk off along the wooded road in the direction they’d come—and when, later that afternoon, Abner emerged from the woods atop a sleek chestnut stallion, Zeetha was trotting along beside him, grinning.
Gunter, the big man who was Balthazar’s father, saw them first and roared out a welcome that also served to alert the rest of the camp. Everyone dropped what they were doing and converged on the returning pair.
A dark-haired young man reached them ahead of the others, and grinned up at Abner. “Hey! You’re alive! And back quick, too!”
Abner laughed. “Sorry, Lars! You can’t rent out my half of the wagon just yet.” He patted his mount, who was eyeing the gathering crowd nervously. “For which you can thank this fine horse.”
Lars examined it critically, and nodded in admiration. “Wulfenbach’s people give him to you?”
Abner snorted at the thought. “Ha. I don’t talk that fast. I found him wandering loose near a campsite that had... well, it had been attacked by something.”
Instantly Lars went tense. “Attacked by something? By what?”
“I don’t know. It was something nasty. The place was wrecked pretty bad.” He dismounted. “Believe me, I was glad to find this guy. I wanted out of there fast. Some of the remains I found... well... whatever got them mauled them pretty bad before it ate them.” He saw the look on Lars’ face and shook his head. “Hey, give me some credit. I made sure I wasn’t followed. I rode down the river for close to two kilometers.”
Lars thought about this and nodded reluctantly. “Yeah, that sounds good. Sorry, Ab, worrying is part of my job.” He faced the rest of the crowd. “But that’s still close enough that I want everyone to be on the alert!”
While Abner and Lars talked, Professor Moonsock and Dame Ædith were examining the horse. “Looks mighty famished to me,” Ædith said.
Professor Moonsock ran a hand over the horse’s ribs and frowned. “Certainly feels boney,” she admitted. She tried to grab the animal’s head. “He’ll definitely need fattening up before we can have him working. Come on, old fellow, let me see those teeth.” At this the horse snapped his head back and reared. Ædith caught the smaller woman before she hit the ground. “Closemouthed beast.”
The professor dusted herself off. “He just needs to be fed a bit. Get to know us. Apparently we don’t all have Herr de la Scalla’s winning personality.”
Abner shrugged modestly, then froze as a voice behind him called his name. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before turning.
“Pix,” he said si
mply.
They stood less than a meter apart. Everyone else tried hard to look like they were interested in something else—and failed dismally. Pix spoke first. “Are you all right?”
Abner nodded. “I am.”
“Well... well good.” Pix desperately cast about, trying to think of something to say. This confused her—she usually had plenty to say and didn’t hesitate to say it. But now she realized that there were thousands of things she wanted to say to Abner, and that she was terribly afraid of saying the wrong thing. Suddenly, she was annoyed. This actually helped—now she could talk. “So what was the idea of horning in on my act, hey?”
This was not quite what Abner had expected. “What? But... I had to!” He protested. “I thought he was going to kill you!”
Pix considered this. “It was a close thing, wasn’t it?” she admitted, “But I don’t think he was the kind to shoot an unarmed girl. He was making too much noise. I had him pretty rattled, after all.”
Pix turned to Agatha. “But it would have helped if you’d told us you were running from a lover. We all thought they were looking for you because you’d stolen something.” Everyone looked at Krosp.
The cat drew himself up haughtily. “Wrowr! As if I’d go and let myself get stolen! I rescued her!”
Agatha sputtered, “He... he is hardly my lover! And I am not...”
Pix patted her shoulder sympathetically. “No, no, don’t worry. We’ve all had experiences we’d like to forget. I expect he took shocking liberties.”
Dame Ædith bit her lower lip, her eyes glowing with interest. “Oh yes, that kind always does! I expect he did terrible, vile things—”
Professor Moonsock perked up. “Oooh—really? You poor girl, you must tell us all about it!” She looked at the others. “Purely for therapeutic reasons, of course.” The others nodded solemnly, and then looked expectantly at Agatha.
Agatha’s outraged protest was cut off when Zeetha stepped forward. “All right, ladies. Enough.” Agatha looked at the green-haired girl gratefully. “Anyway, whatever he did couldn’t have been too horrible, she almost ran right out to him. I thought I was going to have to hold her back for a minute there.”
Agatha blushed. “That... that’s because I thought he was going to shoot Pix!” she insisted.
Zeetha nodded sagely. “Of course. Well, in any case, don’t worry. I have something that’ll take your mind off of him.” She flourished the training staff. “More training! Now run!”
Everyone watched until the two girls were out of sight—some with sympathy, but most with amusement. Then, with pleasure borne of the knowledge that no one was likely to chase them with sticks, they smiled and returned to their work. Abner and Pix were left standing awkwardly alone.
Abner took a deep breath. “So Pix, I seem to remember this kiss.”
Pix went red. She glared at Abner, “Oh, you seem to, do you?”
Gently he took hold of her shoulders. “Perhaps I should have said that I’ll never forget it.”
Pix went redder. “Oh.”
Abner waited for a moment, but that seemed to be all she was going to say. Gingerly, he slid his arm around her shoulders. Pix looked up at him. She was beautiful. He’d known that, of course, but never before had he quite noticed how beautiful. Perhaps he should tell her this. “Let’s talk,” he said.
Pix nodded. “Yes.”
Some time later, Lars lifted the lid of a barrel. Agatha was huddling inside. “Ah. There you are.” He laughed.
She looked up at him with pleading eyes. “Have pity on me, whoever you are.”
The young man grinned. “Yeah, I guess we haven’t met. I’m Lars. I’m one of the show’s advance men.”
Agatha looked up at him. He was very handsome, with dark hair and well muscled arms that showed under his short sleeves. “Is that some technical term for a leading man?”
He laughed again, and effortlessly lifted her from the barrel. His hands were large and steady. “No, although I do play Bill Heterodyne a lot. No, an advance man travels ahead of the circus. We scout the terrain ahead. It’s our job to keep the show from riding into a nest of monsters or wasting time going down a road that ends up being washed out—things like that.
“When we get to a town, we make sure it’s not full of cannibals or blood frogs. If it seems okay, then we have to find a place for the show to set up, figure out who we have to bribe, collect local information that might be good to include in the show, and try to get a good deal on any supplies we need.”
“That sounds pretty dangerous.” Agatha said, then thought a little about Zeetha, and Zeetha’s stick. “Hey, the next time you go, take me with you!”
That got yet another laugh. Agatha liked the sound of it. “Ah, are you one of my fans, already?” Lars chuckled, “I know I have a magnetic personality, but...”
“No!” Agatha was blushing a lot, today. “I mean, I just thought it would be a good way to escape—”
“Interesting. Usually we get farm girls who want to join the show to escape.”
“Oh? Escape from what?”
Lars grew serious. She had asked the question lightly, but suddenly Agatha wondered what he’d seen. “The tedium of farming. A family that thinks of her as nothing but a servant, or worse. The dull lad she’s doomed to marry. A town that remembers every one of her mistakes...”
“What do you do with them?” Agatha asked.
Lars immediately brightened. “Why, we take them, of course!”
Agatha looked surprised. “You do?”
They had been walking away from camp as they spoke, following a path that led across a shallow brook. Lars gallantly held out a hand to help her hop across on the flat stones that served as a bridge.
He nodded. “Sure. Some panic their first night away from home, and most of them, having succeeded in escaping their old life, leave us at the next town. But some—ah, some people set foot on the stage and never step off.”
Agatha gave him a shrewd look. “Like yourself.”
“Ha! Caught!” He struck a dramatic pose and his voice boomed forth. “You see before you a former cheesemaker’s apprentice, who foolishly stopped to see a traveling Heterodyne show when he was supposed to be delivering a wheel of Hungarian Kashkaval!” Lars threw his arms wide and looked impressive for a brief moment, but he had chosen his stage poorly. His boots slipped on the wet rocks and he toppled, plunging ankle-deep into the water. Agatha laughed and helped him up.
On the bank, Lars continued. “It was The Heterodyne Boys and Their Anthracite Burning Earth Orbiter.” He sighed happily at the memory. “That was over ten years ago and I’ve never regretted it.”
Agatha smiled. “My favorite was always Race to the West Pole.”
Lars clapped his hands. “Oh, yeah. That’s a good one. We haven’t done it in a while, though.”
“Why not?”
He shrugged. “Different shows work better with different actors. It’s not like it’s a problem, there’s so many of them, you know? It just hasn’t come around in the rotation.” He eyed Agatha speculatively. “It’s about due, actually. Hmm... but there are some tough scenes in West Pole. Remember the scene on the burning submersible?” His voice suddenly shifted timbre, becoming lower and more intense.
“Renounce your father, lest his evil corrupt you!”
Lars paused, and looked at Agatha encouragingly. Agatha shivered. His voice, as he’d said the line, had sent an electric tingle down her spine. She thought back to the last time she’d seen the play.
It had been years ago, in Beetleburg, during one of the annual Lightning Festivals. Booths and revelers had crowded the streets. It had been easy to slip away from Lilith, who had been busy dickering over a set of exotic canning jars—and who, Agatha knew, would not have approved of her foster-daughter’s enthusiasm for the show playing on the makeshift stage in the market square. It had been a rare forbidden pleasure, and Agatha had watched intently. Later, she would replay the wonderful story over and over
in her head.
Lars had begun the scene where Bill Heterodyne and the villainous Lucrezia Mongfish were trapped together aboard the slowly combusting submarine. It was one of her favorite scenes, and she knew how it went:
“One cannot be corrupted by Science! And Science alone is my master!”
Lars nodded approvingly and moved closer. “Then your master is mad! As mad as you have driven me!”
“Is it madness to see clearly? You only confuse me!”
Lars swept her into his arms. “Allow me to elucidate.”
Agatha tilted her head back and looked him in the eyes. “...It could be an interesting experiment, if I but dared...”
“Don’t tell me you fear the experiment?”
“I fear the result! But the experiment itself—why, that is but Science!”
“For Science, then!”
“For Science!”
On the stage, it was an intense scene, romantic and passionate—and it was meant to end with a torrid kiss. Agatha and Lars blinked at each other. He held her tightly in his arms, pulled close so that their faces were only centimeters apart. She, gazing up into his face, was clutching at his shirt and pulling him down toward her in a most unseemly way.
They broke apart and Agatha fanned herself with her hand. The weather seemed to have turned unseasonably warm, and her heart was pounding.
Lars took a deep breath and grinned. “Say! You’re pretty good!”
Agatha licked her lips. “Really? I never... ah... so that’s acting? I... I wonder if...” A strained wheeze stopped her, and she glanced sideways at Lars. He was staring fixedly up over her head. “Lars?”
He gripped her arm tightly. “Shhh! Geisterdamen,” he whispered.
Agatha slowly turned to look, then froze in shock. Before them were a pair of gigantic, blue-white furred spiders. Eight long legs hoisted each creature’s body easily six meters up into the air. They wore harnesses and saddles, with packs, gear and weapons strapped behind. Astride each of these monsters was a tall, slender young woman. Moving only her eyes, Agatha glanced back and forth between the two and realized that they were identical. Both had extremely pale skin, long flowing white hair, and the same peculiar outfit of folded and draped fabric. Chillingly, both also had the same wide, pupil-less eyes.
